Well liberals, so Ignatieff is going to buy the quebec vote with a new

[BubberMiley]

ooops...double post

Edited March 19, 2011 by BubberMiley

[Black Dog]

WRONG! Those are 2008 prices. Check your own link. Gold club tickets are $236 each in 2010/11, and no doubt going up. Multiply that by 41 home games plus a few pre season tickets, and you get no change from $11,000 per seat for golds. All other seats have commensusrate increases.

Link please. $11,000 is still more than New York the highest in the league.

$7500 per year is a reasonable estimate for a reasonable seat.

Again: based on what?

That is what it MUST cost in Winterpeg too, you cannot operate with less revenue since the NHL is driven by their gate. You also need to expand your new arena immediately, it is too small.

Hmmm. What's better:

a) A 17,000+ capacity arena with an average attendance of 11,000

or

A 15,000 seat arena that's sold out every night?

]That's the problem with you guys, you could not afford the team in the 90s and you cannot accept that nothing has really changed.

a) It's not "my" team.

Lots has changed. You don't seem able to acknowledge that, but it's true. Most significantly, the Canadian dollar being at or near par.

Meanigless, as the average income earner cannot possibly afford tickets to NHL games anyway.

Then who are all these people filling up Canada's hockey arenas then? Are there really that many millionaires that they can pack 18-19,000 in each rink, game in and game out?

Montreal is a much larger city with many more wealthy people who can afford the $15,000 cost of a pair of very average season tickets. NHL hockey is not affordable for the ordinary working man.

Top end of tickets for the Canadiens are $8,459 a pop ($16,918 a pair). The next tier down are about $7K apiece. Keep making up numbers, though.

[nicky10013]

Well, Harper didn't pay for arena so he dumps money into expanding the Quebec City Airport. All the same arguments that apply to federal funding for an arena apply to the building of an Airport. The government builds it yet airlines that make tonnes of money as well as privately run cargo companies will be the ones that use and operate it. Why not get those companies to find private investors for an expansion that is for private enterprise?

Edited March 20, 2011 by nicky10013

[Keepitsimple]

Well, Harper didn't pay for arena so he dumps money into expanding the Quebec City Airport. All the same arguments that apply to federal funding for an arena apply to the building of an Airport. The government builds it yet airlines that make tonnes of money as well as privately run cargo companies will be the ones that use and operate it. Why not get those companies to find private investors for an expansion that is for private enterprise?

The classic straw man argument......and it'll get you nowhere......Mr. Ignatieff will be in the business of funding Sports Arenas - and it's a bad idea.

A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.

Edited March 20, 2011 by Keepitsimple

[Molly]

The classic straw man argument......and it'll get you nowhere......Mr. Ignatieff will be in the business of funding Sports Arenas - and it's a bad idea.

A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.

And by God, you, of all people should recognize a strawman argument!

[Smallc]

Well, Harper didn't pay for arena so he dumps money into expanding the Quebec City Airport. All the same arguments that apply to federal funding for an arena apply to the building of an Airport.

Not even close. An airport is an important part of transportation infrastructure. A stadium or arene are not.

[Molly]

Not even close. An airport is an important part of transportation infrastructure. A stadium or arene are not.

That's like saying a gift of free room and board wouldn't help with the car paymentss.

The question is whether the federal money going to that provincial/municipal jurisdiction suddenly expanded by $25 million in consideration of a new arena, regardless of how the money might be earmarked.

Nicky obviously suspects it did, and so do I, though it will never be proved without the equivalent of Nixon tapes and so the case can never be properly made- but neither is the general merit or the appropriate funding status of an airport vs. an arena any defense at all from the accusation.

[Smallc]

That's like saying a gift of free room and board wouldn't help with the car paymentss.

No, it's like saying that I'll hep you with your room and board, but you have to buy your own beer.

[Evening Star]

Anyone interested in a look at the economic impact of pro sports would be advised to check out Marc Rosentraub's 1997 book, Major League Losers.

Or just look at the case study of the Seattle Supersonics.

I haven't read that book but, yeah, I've always suspected that the economic arguments around these things are just sports fans' excuses. Intuitively, it seems pretty obvious to me from observation that the presence, absence, or departure of sports teams has little impact on municipal economies. Buffalo's economy won't be turned around by the Sabres' or Bills' ticket sales.

(Quite agree, Smallc. Airports are a much more justifiable expenditure.)

Edited March 21, 2011 by Evening Star

[Molly]

Of course they are, If they weren't, it would be a pretty stupid choice of 'bait and switch'.

[fellowtraveller]

Link please. $11,000 is still more than New York the highest in the league.

Again: based on what?

I am not going to Google Edmonton 2010/11 Oilers ticket prices again, do it yourself. Gold tickets are $236 each, do the math. There is no discount for buying season tickets over a single ticket. All are paid for in full in advance. If you have a box, you buy either 12 or 20 seats for every regular season or preseason game (paid in full in advance). You are also oblioged to buy a minimum and large amount of food and beverages at arena prices from the arena operator.

Hmmm. What's better:

a) A 17,000+ capacity arena with an average attendance of 11,000

or

A 15,000 seat arena that's sold out every night?

That is like asking which is better: pancreatic cancer or brain cancer? Neither of your examples will get you anything but bankruptcy in the current NHL. To survive in Canada in the NHL, you need a larger building sold out all the time, plus all the other revenue from building operations, plus ancilliary revenue. You don't have to like it, but that is the situation. Luckily, all Canadian teams now sell out arenas larger than what Winnipeg proposes. The only other option for Winnipeg would be to charge even more for every seat in their small building.

Then who are all these people filling up Canada's hockey arenas then? Are there really that many millionaires that they can pack 18-19,000 in each rink, game in and game out?

I am hoping that you might have noticed that every other NHL team is based in a city that is either much larger or more prosperous than Winnipeg, or both. If you haven't, sorry to break the news. Edited March 21, 2011 by fellowtraveller